The former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo visited this Sunday, February 13 in his electoral stronghold of Yopougon, district of Abidjan. A first for ten years. Not for a political rally, but to attend a religious ceremony.
With our correspondent in Abidjan, Sidy Yansane
Laurent Gbagbo spent the late afternoon at the headquarters of the Protestant Baptist Church Work and International Mission in Yopougon. He had been invited there by the Reverend Dion Yayé Robert, who chairs the Consistory of Evangelical Protestants in Côte d’Ivoire.
In a speech of about thirty minutes delivered to some 1,500 faithful, the former head of state thanked this religious community for its support during his years of detention at the International Criminal Court. Laurent Gbagbo has lost none of his popularity with these faithful, even though he returned to Catholicism while still in prison.
The former president formalized this homecoming last year, just days later. his return to Ivory Coast. This approach had been interpreted as a definitive confessional and political break with the former first lady Simone Gbagbo, well known for her evangelical fervor.
Laurent Gbagbo reserved this first trip to his electoral stronghold of Yopougon to the religious community. But he announced in his speech an upcoming visit to meet his activists.